Ann E. Cudd will be the next president of Portland State University in Oregon. When she takes office in August, Dr. Cudd will be the second woman to lead the university.
Portland State University enrolls just under 18,000 undergraduate students and more than 5,000 graduate students, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 56 percent of the undergraduate student body.
Dr. Cudd acknowledged she’s joining Portland State at a “critical” time, as the college and the country grapple with the aftermath of a global pandemic, a reckoning with racial injustice and extremist political divisions. Portland’s homelessness crisis has hit the campus as students struggle with economic challenges, Dr. Cudd said, and the college can no longer fully sustain some of its innovative programs due to enrollment declines.
“But Portland is a great city and Portland State University shines as a strong beacon,” Dr. Cudd said. “I firmly believe that we can overcome these challenges and together ignite a renaissance for Portland and Portland State. Indeed, I believe it so strongly that I’m betting my future on it.”
Dr. Cudd has served as provost at the University of Pittsburgh since 2018. Before that she worked as the dean of arts and sciences at Boston University and as a professor and dean of undergraduate studies at the University of Kansas.
Dr. Cudd came to the University of Kansas in 1988 and was named a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy in 2012. She directed the university’s Women, Gender, and Sexuality studies program from 2001 to 2008. Dr. Cudd is the author of Capitalism, For and Against: A Feminist Debate (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Professor Cudd is a graduate of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. She holds a master’s degree in economics and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh.